Summary of Daily Weather Date Being Summarized: 09 April 1995 A major system was digging south-southeastward during the day into the southern Rockies. This produced increasing southwesterly flow aloft over the VORTEX ops area. The high lapse rates that had been present for days in the southern Rockies were pushed out of the Rockies by the advancing system, except in NM, and now extended over most of the southern U.S. The Gulf of Mexico was slow to open up, with return flow development inhibited by low-level ridging along the Gulf coast until late in the day. There was some limited pooling of moisture ahead of the advancing surface cold front in KS and OK but a strong cap had de- veloped that would necessitate substantial lifting to get any sustained convec- tion started. The wind profiles in OK looked very promising as seen in the special soundings (and in the regular data), and it appears this was a case where "almost" was the operative descriptor for the day. A dryline had set up with relatively shallow surface moisture and this dryline began to intrude into the moisture, but the advancing, digging trough was timed to develop pressure falls over the high plains, so that the winds in the dry air backed around and the forcing along the dryline slackened at the time that the daytime heating had significantly eroded the cap. Weak cells developed along the front in central and northeast central OK, but they were not sustained, and almost certainly never tapped the 3000+ CAPE in the boundary layer. There were some limited severe weather reports in KS near the nominal time of the end of the forecast period at 04Z, but they were marginal hail reports. Other convection developed in the VORTEX area, but it was well after 04Z. Doswell